Chancellor to press for sanctions against Monaco

Any money transferred from a European bank account to Monaco will face a
levy, if proposals from Alistair Darling are accepted at a meeting with European
finance ministers tomorrow.

The Times reports that the precise policies will be discussed by tax
authorities in Berlin next week.

The levy proposal follows similar crackdowns on other European tax havens,
including Liechtenstein and Andorra.

Describing Monaco as a ‘goldmine’, a Whitehall official said Germany had ‘the
bit between its teeth’ after successfully flushing out alleged tax evaders in
Liechtenstein and was now targeting Monaco.

‘Monaco is where they want to go and we’re right with them,’ the official
said.

Monaco currently has a zero income tax rate and refuses to share data with
international tax authorities.

Sir Stelios HajiIoannou, founder of easyJet, Wafic Said, the arms broker,
Tory peer Lord Laidlaw and James Bond actor Sir Roger Moore would be among the
thousands of wealthy Britons in Monaco who could be affected by a levy on money
transfers.

There is no suggestion that any of these individuals have evaded tax by
moving cash into the principality.

Following the leakage of Liechtenstein bank account details by a former
employee of bank LGT, the EU is now pushing for reform in tax havens and of bank
secrecy rules across Europe.

‘We are ready to cooperate. Nobody can solve this bilaterally,’ a spokeswoman
for Laszlo Kovacs, the EU taxation commissioner,’ told the Times.